• by Paul Gough , January 5, 2004

Maybe the Can-Spam law is going to do something after all.

As an experiment, I've been tracking the spam that's gotten through to my work and personal email accounts, both before and after Jan. 1. Admittedly, it isn't a scientific method. But email doesn't have to be scientific. You only care whether there's an avalanche awaiting you when you get to the computer. And in the first few days after Jan. 1, it hasn't been that bad.

I say that with a degree of caution, since my work email address is out there on the Internet and I've been known to get my fair share (and more) of spam. (Luckily, we've got a great spam filter, and I only see a fraction of the spam I probably get already). But I've noticed since Jan. 1 a marked decline in the amount of spam there, too. For instance, I used to get three or four emails with viruses attached, purportedly from the Duma - that's the Romanian Legislature - and I haven't gotten one since Wednesday afternoon, a few hours before the new year. Only one email since Thursday qualified as potential spam, so either the spammers are taking a four-day weekend or maybe the law has started to have an effect.

Or our internal filters are working overtime.

On my personal email accounts, I'm pretty happy to say that the results have been similar. My Hotmail account, which is normally a lightning rod for spam of all kinds, only registered two pieces of spam since Jan. 1, where a normal "junk email" load would be about 30 or 40 a day.

What does this mean? Probably nothing. But it's nice to see our tax dollars at work, right?

-- Paul J. Gough